


Scrambled or Fried?

by Razikale



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Humor, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 02:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10710627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razikale/pseuds/Razikale
Summary: Suvi is a brilliant scientist, a sweet friend and a trifle naive when it comes to her enthusiasm for their new galactic home. That can lead to things getting messy.





	Scrambled or Fried?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a random scene that popped into my head. Doesn't really fit into the main story so I decided to let it stand alone. Just a chance to enjoy playing with Kallo and Suvi and the stories within stories that are always popping up in those snippets of conversation we hear on the Tempest.

Ryder was in an unnervingly good mood. There hadn't been a disaster, distress call or anal retentive message from Tann in days. It was enough to make her feel light on her feet, almost giddy. Only the stern visage of her father playing in the back of her mind kept her from skipping her way down the corridor. Of course, if he were actually alive to give her that particularly disapproving look she would hop on one leg through the Nexus in nothing but Jaal’s fluttering rofjinn. She paused at the entrance to the bridge, biting the inside of her cheek to hold back the childish giggle that such a thought evoked. Peebee really was rubbing off on her.

“Kallo?” Suvi hadn’t realized the Pathfinder was nearby.

“Yes, Suvi?” The salarian kept focus on his controls.

“I’m still so sorry,” Suvi sounded genuinely despondent. Ryder decided to hold off on her own agenda and find out what was happening. It was her ship, after all. Altercations and conflict could be dangerous to the welfare of the whole crew. Besides, Kallo was the biggest gossip this side of the universe, how could she resist getting some dirt?

“It was an honest mistake,” Kallo waved away the apology. He didn’t sound particularly angry, but there were definitely a few extra notes of stress in his already high-strung tone.

“The scans all said it was a geode! The color was so pretty, I thought it would be nice to have a piece of Eos up here with us,” Suvi continued regretfully. She sounded so much like a sad puppy that Ryder barely resisted walking over and petting her.

“It was very pretty,” Kallo agreed. “Perhaps we can find a few of the shards? The larger ones might be embedded in the walls.”

The Pathfinder had spent enough time listening to salarians in general, and her pilot in particular, to recognize when they were being scientifically objective and when they were just sarcastic as hell. This was both. She automatically scanned her eyes over the walls of the cockpit. Nothing sticking out; no signs of damage at all. Unless? Ryder approached to inspect more closely. The usual gunmetal color was a bit off. She ran her hand over the surface and immediately felt the minuscule particles. Her fingers came away . . .sparkling?

“Ok guys, what happened up here?” She finally announced her presence, startling both people. The pilot and science officer looked up at their leader and the accusation of her outstretched, glittering hand. There was a split second of silent interchange between the two, each willing to defer to the other.

“Suvi brought back a rock.” Kallo quickly decided to speak first, a trifle defensive.

“I gathered as much.” Ryder rested her clean hand on one hip. She could wait.

“It exploded.” Kallo really was determined not to give up any more information than necessary. The redheaded copilot shot him a quick disapproving look, but one corner of her mouth was quirking in a smile. It was actually quite sweet. Suvi clearly thought the salarian had reason to be angry with her but here he was protecting her, as always.

“Rocks don’t explode.” Ryder wasn’t really 100% certain on that. Out here in Heleus they’d found all kinds of surprises. Exploding rocks would fit in pretty well with the floating mountains and burning water. Her guilty looking crew didn’t need to know that, though.

“It was an egg,” Suvi finally blurted out, eyes wincing with chagrin.

“Come again?” Ryder looked back at her shiny fingers with a tinge of horror. _Please tell me this isn’t alien yolk._

“It didn’t explode, it hatched,” the science officer corrected Kallo’s earlier over-simplification.

“Explosively.” Kallo wasn't budging on that.

“There was some sort of internal chemical interaction,” Suvi’s brow gave an annoyed tick. “The whole thing got super-heated and the outer shell started to swell and—,”

“It exploded.” Ryder was going to have to side with Kallo on this one. She ran her clean hand through her hair and sighed, “Suvi, what hatched onto our ship?”

“We’re still not entirely sure,” the redhead chewed her lip, looking now to her friend for help. “It looked like a type of amphibian?”

“But with a lot of legs,” Kallo agreed.

“There was definitely a mucous membrane protecting the outer skin.”

“Scales.”

“And some of the legs might have been tails.”

“It had a lot of legs _and_ tails.  Tongues too, maybe." These two were going to go back and forth like this until she stopped them.

“Enough!” The Pathfinder interrupted the scientific debate, determined to make them focus back on what actually mattered. She waited until they were both definitely looking at her. “On my ship: what is it and where?”

Kallo and Suvi blinked, momentarily confused by the question.

“Oh, it’s gone!” It was Kallo that first realized the key fact that Ryder was missing.

“Jak ate it,” Suvi added helpfully.

“You know, he’s the first pyjak I’ve liked?” The pilot enthused happily.

“So,” Ryder slowly put all the pieces of the story into place, “No one was hurt? Not even Jak?”

“He threw up about an hour later. We cleaned it and put the sample in a biohazard container in the lab.” Suvi had that glint in her eye again. The very best and fastest of the Tempest’s systems and resources were about to be devoted to analyzing pyjak puke.

“Okay. Good. That's . . . good.” Ryder rested her arms on the redhead’s chair. She let out a sigh of relief and almost considered the matter completely closed. Except there was still one niggling question. She looked down at the other woman, “So why were you apologizing so much to Kallo?”

Suvi’s eyes darted awkwardly away as her voice grew small, “We took care of Jak’s mess, and got most of the vaporized shell off the walls and surfaces. The stuff is harmless and cleans quick,” there was a pause, the copilot squirming uncomfortably in her seat. “But salarian skin has different chemical absorption properties.”

Ryder waited, listening as the words faded to silence without providing a punchline. She looked over to Kallo to finish the explanation and it was only a split second before her eyes widened, immediately seeing the missing answer. Her pilot was dead quiet. He was also, every inch of him, glittering.


End file.
